Grasping for Feathers

I've been trying to think of a good metaphor for the Obama Administration's economic policy. From bailouts (which in fairness began under the Bush Administration, but has been perfected over the past three months), to wild spending on who-knows-what, to the latest outrage where the president literally fired the CEO of General Motors (cementing the socialist direction in which they are taking the nation)... well, it leaves one wanting for a suitable metaphor.

My first inclination was the imagery of someone throwing darts at a dartboard while blindfolded and basing policy decisions on wherever the dart lands. That seemed too random, though; economic policy hasn't been so much "all over the place" -- there is too much of a common theme for that analogy to apply -- as it has been "everything and the kitchen sink"... which was my second metaphor idea, but it was too unoriginal.

I think the better analogy is from a classic cartoon: Do you recall the Looney Toons cartoon where Sylvester was chasing Tweety, who had gotten into Dr. Jekyll's "Hyde" formula and kept transforming into a large monster-bird? At one point, while Tweety was in "monster" form, he picked Sylvester up in his talons and began flying off with him; however, in mid-flight, he transformed back into Tweety at which point he was no longer able to carry Sylvester's weight. Terrified of falling, Sylvester begins grasping at Tweety's tail feathers, trying to get enough feathers in his hands to flap as wings to break his fall (remember this is a cartoon). Needless to say, he wasn't very successful.

This is the image that I have of the Obama Administration. They are grasping at every policy that they can get their hands on, regardless of cost, and regardless of whether or not it has a snowball's chance of actually working. It seems that they have believed their own rhetoric about "the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression" to the point that they are nearly in a panic. (As I have said before, just how bad the current recession will be remains to be seen, but regardless, the Chicken Little mentality is far from helpful.) Of course, it also affords them the chance to trot out every big-government program that Washington liberals have wanted to enact for the past thirty years. Even some European leaders, hardly known for their laissez-fair capitalist tendencies, are beginning to look askance at the furious rate at which the president is transforming our economy into a state-run enterprise.

Nonetheless, I stand by my analogy: When it comes to economic policy, the Obama Administration is grasping for feathers.

Federalism Repealed?

I got home from the gym the other night just in time to hear President Obama repeal federalism. Okay, maybe, hopefully, that is an exaggeration. But consider the following from President Obama's speech before a joint session of Congress -- to put it in context, he was speaking of maintaining accountability as to how the funds authorized under the "stimulus" package are spent:

I have told each member of my Cabinet as well as mayors and governors across the country that they will be held accountable by me and the American people for every dollar they spend. I have appointed a proven and aggressive Inspector General to ferret out any and all cases of waste and fraud.

First of all, this underscores the reservations coming from governors and state legislatures regarding the strings attached to the "stimulus" money going to the states. The broader implication however seems to be that mayors and state governors work for the president. They do not; while state governments are subject to certain federal laws under the Supremacy Clause in the Constitution, they are not mere subdivisions of the national government the way that provincial governments are in European countries. The Tenth Amendment was intended to guarantee that states maintain sovereignty over powers not granted to the federal government by the Constitution. This was intended to provide a check on the power of the national government. This has been substantially weakened over the course of the past 190 years, but liberals in Washington seem bent on finishing off the job. Finally, a number of states are beginning to buck. The language is that of nullification.

Nullification is the doctrine that states can declare a federal law to be unconstitutional and therefore declare that law to be null and void. The Framers saw nullification as a valid means of checking federal power. Consider the following thought from James Madison, considered to be the "Father of the Constitution", as stated in Federalist #46:

...should an unwarrantable measure of the federal government be unpopular in particular States... or even a warrantable measure be so... the means of opposition to it are powerful and at hand. The disquietude of the people; their repugnance and, perhaps, refusal to co-operate with the officers of the Union; the frowns of the executive magistracy of the State; the embarrassments created by legislative devices, which would often be added on such occasions, would oppose, in any State, difficulties not to be despised... [emphasis added].